AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER 20
Dylan
“I just fucking cut her off,” I told Damian later that night as we talked on the phone. “She was trying to say something, probably trying to tell me to sod off, and I just didn’t want to hear it. What kind of prick does that make me if I wouldn’t even listen to what she had to say?”
It was midnight in California, but I’d known that Damian would be up since it was morning for him and a workday.
He was trying to catch up as much as possible at Lancaster International headquarters before the wedding because he and Nicole were taking a long honeymoon to tour a couple of different European countries.
“You poured your heart out,” Damian commiserated. “It makes sense that you didn’t want to hear her brush you off. But how do you know that was her plan?”
“I don’t know that,” I said, feeling miserable. “I think I just got concerned that she would. Fuck, Damian! How did you live with uncertainty every day when Nicole had your balls in her hands?”
Damian chuckled. “I didn’t handle it well, I can tell you that, but at least Kylie knows everything about you, and you aren’t lying to her.”
“She knows too damn much,” I grumbled. “Nothing seems to dissuade her from thinking I’m a decent person, even though she knows the very worst.”
“You are a good person, Dylan,” Damian affirmed. “I take it you decided to dump the plan to take it slow?”
“I didn’t. Not really. I wanted to take things slowly, but she makes it absolutely impossible. I want her way too much, Damian. I want to shake this friendship up and complicate the hell out of it—if that means she’ll end up being mine. I can’t lose her now that I’ve found her, but I can’t have her unless she wants me the way I want her. I know it’s going to take time, and she deserves a man who isn’t going to rush things, but with Kylie, holding anything back is almost impossible. I want her to know she’s the most incredible woman I’ve ever known. All. The. Fucking. Time.”
“I’m not sure that’s a bad thing,” Damian mused. “Maybe she needs to be convinced that you’re serious, Dylan. I think she’s had a lot of idiots in her life. I have no idea what’s wrong with American men, but their loss is our gain.”
“Exactly,” I agreed enthusiastically. “I’m not about to let some American bastards get their hands on Kylie. Not now. They had their bloody chance.”
“You really are mad about her,” Damian said, sounding slightly surprised.
“I told you I was,” I reminded him. “But it’s more than that. This isn’t just an infatuation that’s going to go away, eventually. She belongs in my life, Damian. I can’t shake the sense that she was always supposed to be mine. I know that sounds crazy—”
“It doesn’t,” Damian interrupted flatly. “I get it, but now I know you’re fucked. I feel the same way about Nicole.”
“Like she’s the one woman who really knows you, and not the Damian Lancaster that most other people see?” I questioned.
“Yes.”
“How can I let that go?” I asked him.
“You don’t,” he replied. “Treat her right, Dylan. You need her.”
“Like I don’t already know that?” I asked. “What do I do if she doesn’t need me?”
Fuck! I was starting to sound pathetic, but I was getting to the point of desperation, so I really didn’t care.
“You stay patient until she does,” Damian answered. “I have no doubt that Kylie needs a man she can trust and who adores her. After the tossers she’s had in her life, you can hardly blame her for being afraid to try anymore.”
“I don’t. I haven’t exactly acted like a man worthy of her faith.”
“I don’t believe it’s that, Dylan. I think she knows that you aren’t the man you’ve appeared to be over the last two years. I think it’s her hesitance to trust any man or to believe that she’s more than worthy of one who will stay and not stray.”
I tossed a pillow behind my back and leaned against the headboard of the bed. “Her father left her the moment she turned eighteen,” I told him. “Do you think that’s where it started?”
Damian released an audible breath. “The question is, was he ever really there for her in the first place?”
“I don’t think so,” I told him. “Physically, maybe, but he was an alcoholic, so I doubt he ever had anything to give. I find it more likely that she took care of him and not the other way around.”
I’d never really thought about the fact that Kylie’s lack of trust toward men may have started even earlier than her dead husband, but it made sense that it had really started with her father.
I gripped my mobile a little harder, hating the thought that nobody had ever been there for Kylie when she was so willing to give to everyone else.
